How to Speed up WordPress Site: 17 must-do Things for Fast WordPress Site

WordPress is one of the most popular content management systems in existence. Businesses use it frequently to create and maintain websites offering information and services.

• As per Kinsta, 43% of websites are built using WordPress. This is significant compared to competitors like Wix (1.3%) and Joomla’s (2.6%) global website shares.
• Despite all the effort teams or individuals invest in developing rich and multifaceted WordPress websites, website speed, or the lack thereof, can inevitably ruin the user experience.
• A previous article discussed why website speed matters for businesses and why one shouldn’t optimize website speed.

This article delves into how WordPress users can accelerate their websites by following tips and best practices in WordPress.

Why do you need Speed Optimization for your WordPress Website?

The importance of testing and optimizing a website’s speed and performance has only increased over the years. As we laid out in numbers on bounce rate and conversion rates in a previous section, it’s clear why tech businesses are focused on it.

Here are some reasons why you should consider improving your website speed:

• User Experience (UX): Slow website speeds can frustrate users, leading to a decrease in user satisfaction and engagement. A smooth, responsive user experience can encourage users to stay on your site longer, interact more with your content, and be more likely to convert (for example, make a purchase, sign up for a newsletter, etc.).
• Mobile Internet Use: The use of mobile devices for internet browsing has grown exponentially. Mobile users often have different connectivity and speed conditions, making speed and performance optimization even more crucial.
• SEO Ranking: Search engines, like Google, consider site speed as a ranking factor. Faster websites are more likely to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs), resulting in more visibility and traffic. Google implemented a new ranking algorithm called Core Web Vitals, which focuses on user experience, including loading speed, interactivity, and visual stability.
• ECommerce Growth: For online retailers, website speed and performance directly impact sales and revenue.
• Increasing Web Complexity: Web applications are becoming increasingly complex with more scripts, images, third-party integrations, and high-resolution content than ever before. Making it critical to prioritize speed and performance optimization to ensure the best user experience.
• 5G and Edge Computing: With the ongoing global roll-out of 5G technology and the rise of edge computing, users’ expectations for website performance are higher than ever. These technologies promise significantly faster load times and lower latency.
• Sustainability: There’s an increasing awareness of the environmental impact of digital technologies. More data means more energy consumed, so an optimized, efficient website could also be a more sustainable choice, reducing its carbon footprint.
• Scalability: As your website grows, you will have more users, more page views, and more content. If your website is already slow, growth will only exacerbate the problem. Optimizing your website’s speed ensures that as you grow and scale, your website can handle the increased traffic and content.
• Competitive Advantage: A faster website can give you a competitive advantage. If your website is faster than your competitors’, you’re more likely to retain and attract users. In the online world, where users can go from one site to another in seconds, speed can be a key differentiator.
• Conversion Rates: Slow websites can have a direct impact on conversion rates. So if your website is an online store or relies on user conversions for revenue, optimizing your website’s speed is crucial.

Reasons that can Slow Down your WordPress Site

Below are the key reasons why your WordPress site might be performing poorly:

1. Heavy Themes: Themes packed with unnecessary features or complex code can drag down performance.
2. Too Many Plugins: Overloading your site with plugins, especially poorly coded ones, can slow it down.
3. Large Images: Unoptimized images increase load times.
4. Unoptimized Database: A cluttered database with unnecessary data can hurt performance.
5. No Caching: Without caching, your server processes each request individually which slows down the overall load time.
6. Poor Hosting: Inexpensive shared hosting can slow down your site.
7. Too Many HTTP Requests: Each time someone visits your site, their browser requests files such as images, CSS etc. from your server increasing load times.
8. No CDN: Without a CDN, users who are far from your server may experience slower load times.
9. Unoptimized CSS/JavaScript: CSS and JavaScript files are essential for functionality, but they can also slow down your site if not properly optimized.
10. Excessive External Scripts: If your site relies heavily on external scripts such as fonts, analytics, or social media widgets, these can slow down performance.

Tips to Speed up a WordPress Website

Here are some of the tips to speed up your WordPress website:

Tip 1: Use Optimized Image Sizes

Reduce image file sizes without compromising quality by using plugins like WP Smush, EWWW Image Optimizer, or Optimole. This helps maintain fast load times while keeping your visuals sharp.

Tip 2: Compress Images Before Upload

Compress images using tools like TinyPNG or Photoshop to further minimize file sizes before uploading them to WordPress.

Tip 3: Avoid Direct Audio/Video Uploads

Instead of hosting media files on your site, embed videos and audio from external platforms like YouTube or SoundCloud. This saves bandwidth and improves loading speeds.

Tip 4: Minimize HTTP Requests

Reduce the number of elements like CSS files, images, and scripts on each page. Combining and minifying files can decrease the number of HTTP requests, speeding up page loads.

Tip 5: Choose a Lightweight Theme

Avoid themes with excessive features and scripts that slow down performance. Instead, opt for lightweight, well-coded themes optimized for speed.

Tip 6: Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN)

CDNs, like Cloudflare or StackPath, distribute your site’s content across multiple servers worldwide, allowing faster load times for users regardless of their location.

Tip 7: Enable Caching

Install caching plugins like W3 Total Cache or WP Super Cache to store static copies of your web pages. This reduces the server’s workload and speeds up page delivery for visitors.

Tip 8: Optimize Your Homepage

Minimize the number of posts displayed on the homepage, show excerpts instead of full posts, and remove unnecessary widgets to reduce load times.

Tip 9: Disable Trackbacks and Pingbacks

Trackbacks and pingbacks generate unnecessary server requests. Disable them in your WordPress settings to lighten the server load and improve performance.

Tip 10: Minimize External Scripts

Limit the number of external resources, such as third-party fonts, analytics tools, and widgets. Only use essential scripts to keep your site running smoothly.

Tip 11: Activate GZIP Compression

Enable GZIP compression to reduce the size of files sent from your server to users’ browsers. This decreases bandwidth usage and speeds up page loading.

Tip 12: Keep WordPress Updated

Regularly update WordPress core, themes, and plugins to ensure they’re running efficiently and taking advantage of performance improvements and security patches.

Tip 13: Use Lazy Loading for Images and Videos

Implement lazy loading to defer loading images and videos until they are visible on the user’s screen. This can drastically reduce initial load times for image-heavy pages.

Tip 14: Optimize Your Database

Clean up your WordPress database by deleting old revisions, spam comments, and unused data. Use plugins like WP-Optimize to automate this process and keep your database lean.

Tip 15: Choose High-Quality Hosting

Invest in reliable, high-performance hosting. Avoid overcrowded shared hosting environments and consider upgrading to a managed or VPS plan for better speed.

Tip 16: Reduce Plugin Usage

Only use essential plugins and regularly deactivate or delete plugins you no longer need. Excessive or poorly coded plugins can slow down your site.

Tip 17: Run Regular Speed Tests

Use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix to regularly test your website’s performance. These tools offer detailed reports and recommendations on how to further optimize your site’s speed.

How to test your WordPress Website Speed using SpeedLab?

BrowserStack SpeedLab is a one-stop platform where QA testers can test their website speed on a dedicated testing infrastructure.

Here’s a simple 3 step process to test your website loading speed using SpeedLab for Free:

Step 1. Choose your preferred device for testing on SpeedLab

Step 2. Insert your website URL and select a browser for testing

Step 3. Click on “Get Free Report”

Once you’ve completed the testing process with the selected Browser, a detailed report will be generated that shows complete insights on key metrics such as mobile & desktop speed score, cross-browser compatibility, page load time, and many other factors.

Talk to an Expert

Conclusion

Once the WordPress user has made the necessary optimizations, testing the results is vital. To do so, teams must use a website speed test tool to test page load time across various real devices and browsers. This will help them evaluate their optimization efforts.

WordPress has evolved as a highly preferred content management system for creating and maintaining websites. For a WordPress website to deliver impressive results, optimizing it for speed is a must. The plugins listed above, when incorporated correctly, will enhance user experience significantly for WordPress websites.